Social Issues In Alice Walker's The Color Purple

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The Color Purple is a controversial film from 1985, the film portrays the life of a young African–American girl, known as Celie. As a young girl, she went through the hardship of her mother passing away and her father becoming sexually and physically abusive. Celie was forced to have intercourse and bear her father’s children, helping to shape her into the person she was at the end of the film. As Nettie began to grow, Celie became over-protective of her against their father and other alike men. When a Mister Albert Johnson took a special interest in Nettie at their church, Celie noticed how uncomfortable she was around Mister Johnson. A few days later, Johnson came to Celie’s father and asked for Nettie’s hand in marriage, he refused and offered …show more content…
The film end with the girls being reunited after Celie is free from both her husband and father due to their deaths. (The Color Purple, 1985) The director pulls this film together by exposing the existence of social issues which were thought to be resolved by the 1980s. The writer and director of The Color Purple portrayed the lives of African-Americans after the passing of the Civil Rights Act. They showed how the Act did not truly give African-Americans their rights, which led to violence both in the movie and in society …show more content…
Women across the country are able to relate to such a topic. In society, it is not uncommon to hear of a woman being beat by a man, no matter the race or relation. The difference between then and now, is the power and confidence women do need in order to stand up for themselves. In the 1980s and earlier years, however, it was unheard of for a black woman to stand up for herself. Physical abuse is not the only abuse women of color had to take from her husband or the man of the family. They also had to endure sexual abuse, most of the time this consisted of rape. In the movie, Celie is sexually abused by her stepfather after her mother is close to death and tells Fonso (Celie’s Stepdad) she will not sleep with him anymore. At the start of the movie, Celie is basically the target of all sexual abuse, from any man. Fonso would not think of touching the youngest (Nettie). “[Celie’s mother] went to visit her sister doctor over in Macon. She left me to see after the others. He never say not one kine word to me. He just say ‘you are gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t do.’” (The Color Purple, 1985) (Dixon,

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